


Idealism Isn't Ideal

by heikun



Category: The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst, Death, Death??, Gen, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Misunderstandings, Non-Linear Narrative, Pre-Slash, i guess, its really minor dw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 22:17:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12142287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heikun/pseuds/heikun
Summary: Connor is a terrible, terrible devil.





	Idealism Isn't Ideal

Connor McKinley dies when he is nineteen.

It's quite unfortunate actually - a car veers off road as he's walking home from school and crashes into him, the curb, and a lamp post. Connor, with no time to react, is killed on impact. One moment, he is frozen in shock - the next, everything is black. He wakes up in Hell, which is pretty funny because it's exactly like how he has dreamt it to be every night since fifth grade, but he feels warmer. More welcome, and when a demon taps him on the shoulder and beckons him to follow, Connor doesn't even flinch. He feels better here than he's ever felt back home, as if he's finally comfortable. If this is death, Connor thinks absently as he weaves through tortured souls, I don't think I mind being damned.

In retrospect, he should've seen the job offer coming.

* * *

 

Uganda is hot. So incredibly hot that almost all the Elders have decided to forgo their undergarments in favor of not getting heat stroke. Connor is no exception, wearing a pair of boxers that Elder Church had managed to get for him from the market. His usually crisp uniform seems to be a bit more ruffled than usual, and even his colorful tie is wilting. He's trying his hardest to finish the mission report on his desk, only it's not a mission report to the church as the others may think, but rather a file of the souls he has sent off in the past week. Being a devil doesn't matter when you're among the living - they are still bound to the same rules that humans are with a few exceptions. Being able to combat heat is not one of them. Connor clicks his tongue in annoyance as his grip on his pen gets increasingly sweatier, threatening to slip at any moment. There are surprisingly low amounts of souls in Uganda that deserve to go to Hell.

Before dying, Connor had thought that everyone who did not believe in God went to Hell. Now he knows that this is not the case. In hindsight, he had been incredibly close minded to not see the good that the villagers of Kitguli had under all their crassness. The first week, his mentor had to confiscate his scythe for damning too many people just because they swore. Connor often wondered why the heck the Council chose him of all people to be a devil - He still believed in God, he was devout to his religion and church, and he never drank alcohol or caffeine.

Connor is a terrible, terrible devil.

Poptarts knocks on his office door just as Connor is detailing the soul of an especially cruel warlord with a really rude name that has recently been terrorizing the villagers. Connor shakes the paper slightly to change it into a fake mission report - a perk of being from Hell meant that slight deception was always possible - and calls for whoever it is to come in. Poptarts enters, holding several letters. He helps Connor do everything Connor doesn't have the time to do, and Connor doesn't know what he would do without his mission companion; without Poptarts he probably would have had to clone himself in order to keep everything from falling apart.

“Hey,” Poptarts says cheerfully, depositing some plain looking envelopes onto Connor’s already growing pile of paperwork, “How’s the mission report going?” Connor sighs forlornly as he watches the pile get higher.

“It’s fine, Elder. I’m just tired, that’s all,” He replies, putting down his pen. Of the three months spent in Kitguli, none of the boys had managed to baptize a single villager. This is a problem for both Connor and the other boys; him because that meant that he had more souls to file through and the others because of the crushing shame they feel when writing back to their families about their failures. Connor’s family doesn’t write to him. After the third unanswered letter, he doesn’t write to them either.

Poptarts bites his lip, leaning on the desk to look Connor in the eye. Whatever he’s searching for, he doesn’t find. Connor watches as he pushes himself off the desk with a sigh and an absent “Take care of yourself, Elder McKinley.” The door clicks shut and Connor drops his head into his hands with a groan. He’s not entirely sure that he’s even suited for this. How ironic, he thinks with a twinge of bitterness, to make him a devil and then send him on a mission of faith. What sort of sick joke his life had turned out to be, a repressed district leader of a Mormon mission who also happened to condemn people to Hell. Connor lets out a short bark of laughter and then breathes in deeply, straightening himself up in his chair and picking up the most official looking envelope from the pile. He rips it open. It’s a short notice detailing the arrival of two new missionaries to the district in the coming week, Elder Price and Elder Cunningham. He sets the letter down and walks out of his office, already planning how the new recruits would fit into their lives.

He’s here anyway, he might as well make himself useful to someone.

* * *

 

His job is simple. All he does is monitor the living and make judgements on who should go to Hell. During the first week of his job, he had a scythe. Well, Connor technically still has the scythe, but it no longer condemns souls automatically at his whim. Instead he submits observations and recommendations and the head office sends him back confirmations or denials. Only then can he use his scythe to mark the souls as damned. The process itself is actually really cool, Connor thinks personally, because it’s something like you would see in an old movie from the 80’s. His scythe is huge, smooth, and metallic, but it’s comfortably light in his hands. When he’s not using it, it warps into a light blue tie. Connor had initially made it a black tie, but after a terrifying mix-up at a laundromat he decided to go for a bit more colour. Poptarts said it brought out his eyes when he first showed up with it on, and Connor never looked back.

Once his scythe is out, Connor either severs the soul or marks it. He’s only allowed to sever souls in very rare circumstances, as that meant immediate death to the person. Marking souls was much more common; all he did was cut through them cleanly. It’s not pleasant getting damned – you feel the excruciating weight of all your wrongdoings happening to you, condensed in a split second of sharp hot pain, and sometimes you pass out. Connor prefers to do his damning at night, when people can pass them off as horrible dreams. In three months of being in Uganda, he has damned thirteen souls, broken rule number 23 eight times, lied fifteen times to his companion, and baptized zero people. It’s not a very impressive resume, and Connor knows it.

* * *

 

Around the same time that Connor gets the letter from the church, he gets a notice from Hell. An angel is coming to his district, reads the notice, to do the same job as you but for Heaven. Connor never really was able to keep up with the jobs that happened between Heaven and Hell and the living, but he knows vaguely that the previous angel in the village had been promoted before he even arrived and left the living entirely. As far as he knows, Connor had been the only one doing his job in the district since. The notion of a possible competitor makes him bristle – He’s never met an angel in his life, and doesn’t know how he feels about that. Maybe I’ll hate them, he muses, warping his tie into the comfortable weight of his useless scythe and throwing it from hand to hand. Maybe we’ll never have to interact.

And then Connor meets Kevin Price.

Elder Price is perfect. There isn’t another word to describe him, really. Connor knows that he sounds a bit stupid being at a loss for words, but Elder Price is handsome, has a smile that brims with confidence, and he acts like he owns the place. There was no doubt about it – Kevin Price was the angel, and Connor would be damned if he wasn’t already incredible.

After a hearty welcome that may have deviated a bit into a dance routine, Connor showed the two new recruits to their rooms. He wasn’t sure if Elder Price had been told about working with a devil, and didn’t want to bring it up unnecessarily. If anything, it felt good to Connor to know that they were special – they were part of a secret world that no one knew but them. And if he resolves to spend a bit more time with Elder Price, no one can really blame him, can they, for clinging to the secret that they shared. Connor went to sleep that night with a wide grin on his face and his heart thumping in his chest. Poptarts mumbles something sleepily at him, but he doesn’t hear it, drifting off to the image of a precise haircut and a brilliant smile.

* * *

 

  
The first soul Connor takes is at the missionary training center.

He’s walking down a hallway, monitoring them when he hears shuffling from a locked classroom. He hesitates, unsure at first but soon enough, his ears pick up the faintest human voices. He doesn’t really think much about it at first – possibly some boys out of bed because they were active and immature – and he unlocks the door with a quick move, hoping to catch them unaware and order them back to their dorms.

Instead of the expected teenage boys having fun breaking the rules, there’s two boys in the corner of the room. One is struggling under the other, his pants unbuckled and his tie in his mouth as he turns towards Connor in terror.

Connor sees red, and he doesn’t even hesitate to unleash his scythe and slice through the boy on top. There’s a massive ordeal afterwards about upsetting the balance of the universe, not using fair condemnation, using his power before they’ve assigned him to an area, etc, but Connor doesn’t hear anything of what his boss says to him. He sits in the office, shaking with rage and disgust until they sigh and dismiss him back to Earth. He’s greeted there by a dead body, a boy who can’t remember anything and later drops out of the program altogether, and suspicious mutterings amongst the other Elders about the district leader in training who was patrolling the halls that night.

Eventually, they send him off to Uganda.

* * *

 

  
Elder Price is nothing like what Connor expected.

He runs into the mission hut, screaming about the Lion King for some reason and covered in blood. Connor has his own issues, like his very current earthly concern about telling the mission president about the solid zero baptisms they have had, but even he feels a flash of terror run through him at the sight of Elder Price, face contorted in terror and anger, fists balled and dripping blood on the carpet. He doesn't even notice the pudgy Elder Cunningham run in shortly after him and shutting the door, panting.

“Elder, you cannot lose your cool on me now!” Connor barks, and Elder Price locks eyes with him. His eyes are blown wide and he looks insane. Connor meets his gaze as evenly as he can. He can feel the spiritual power flowing through the room from Elder Price’s direction, and he allows his own to flare up. Elder Cunningham lets out a little squeak which goes ignored. “We are about to get evaluated by the mission president!”

He doesn’t remember much after that, except for how strong Elder Price’s presence still was long after he runs out the door.

 

* * *

 

  
Connor has always been left to pick up the pieces. Being a devil, it’s kind of in the description, an unsaid requirement. Because Connor still exists, in the grand scheme of things, he’s left to deal with the earthly consequences of his actions. Still, this is way out of his range. This is Kevin Price’s mess, and Connor is standing smack dab in the middle of the chaos, listening to the mission president angrily crush them down. He nods numbly along to the biting words – He was never a good Mormon. He had gay thoughts. He was selfish. He broke the rules. He was also a goddamn devil. But there was something about failure, something about trying your hardest and still not being able to be quite what someone wanted, that made Connor curl up into himself in hot shame despite the probable insignificance of it all. The mission president turns to leave as if he hadn’t just told Connor to pack his life into a suitcase and leave all he’s known, and Connor runs out of the room, salt stinging his eyes.

_Kevin Price doesn’t deserve to be an angel_ , he thinks bitterly as he throws his belongings haphazardly into a spare suitcase _, He deserves to be right down in Hell next to me._

 

* * *

 

  
When Connor is ten, he befriends Steve Blade.

Steve has really green eyes and they match Connor’s blue ones. Steve plays baseball really well and Connor’s dad laughs with him and offers to drive him down to the pitch over dinner. He is polite, always saying please-and-thank you constantly as Connor’s mom adores him and constantly asks Connor when he would be coming back. Steve is really smart and he helps Connor on homework that don’t make any sense until it’s late and he ends up spending the night.

Steve is perfect, and Connor thinks he’s incredible. An angel.

Connor realizes quickly that his strange feelings for Steve were unusual. He sees the way his father scoffs in anger at the men holding hands, sees the way his mother tells him to turn off the television when two women start getting too close to each other. It’s unnatural to have this attraction, Connor knows, and the way his heart beats around Steve makes his throat close up in shame. It’s not what God wants, he thinks to himself at night after his prayers, and turns off his bedside lamp. Just turn it off.

 

* * *

 

  
Connor may be a bit biased, but he personally thinks it unbelievable that Elder Price manages to fix everything again, manages to get away scot-free and even start a new religion based off Elder Cunningham’s brilliant, but weird stories. Connor is going home to a family which he hasn’t contacted in three and a half months, going to have to uproot himself from the district he’s supposed to stay in for his contract with Hell and sort out all that damn paperwork. Connor always gets the worse end of the stick no matter how hard he tries, and when Elder Price runs up to him and the other Elders at the bus stop Connor is quite frankly sick of him.

“Elders, where are you going?” He yells after them and Connor almost doesn’t stop. He turns and comes face to face with Elder Price, eyes shining and hair messy, tie askew and a bright confident smile on his face. Connor sees red briefly but resists challenging him to a duel right then and there. It’s so unfair that Elder Price is happy. It’s so unfair that Elder Price doesn’t get punished. It’s so unfair that someone as selfish as him ever became an angel, and Connor thinks he hates him.

(He could never truly hate Kevin Price though, because there’s a part of him that gets blinded by that smile and his heart races just a bit too fast to be controllable whenever he’s around, and Connor knows.)

“The mission president told us to go, remember?” He says instead, tugging at his tie subtly. Its presence is a comforting reminder.

“Yeah, he says we’re all as far from latter-day saints as we’re going to get,” Elder Davis pipes up sorrowfully from behind him, and Connor feels a pang of guilt. These elders are his boys, and as district leader Connor was responsible for their failure. They should never have been caught up in this storm. Was Connor really so eager for baptisms that he had made them break the rules? He swallows the choked feeling in his throat and turns it off as best he can. Elder Price starts talking again, and Connor doesn’t want to listen to him. He’s rambling on about how they are still all latter-day saints, even if they change some things or break the rules or have complete doubt that God exists. Everyone gathers to hear Elder price’s heartfelt speech, elders and villagers alike. And suddenly, everything is okay again, and everyone is celebrating. Connor forces himself to smile and swallows the angry bile that rises in his throat.

Amidst the fun, he slips back to the mission hut. It’s getting dark now, and he knows that despite Elder Price’s pep talk, the elders of District 9 and the villagers of Kitguli are going to have to put all they have into convincing the church to let them stay. Once he’s sure he’s alone on the path, Connor rips off his tie and lets it transform into his scythe. It’s comforting to hold it and know that he had this power, this power that set him apart from the rest of the living. A small part of his brain unhelpfully comments that Elder Price probably has something just like it as well, being an angel and all. Connor ignores it and slices through the still, humid air of Uganda. He’s so tired, tired of pretending to be a good leader, a good Mormon, a good devil. For the nth time, he thinks of the irony of his existence, how he’s no longer Connor McKinley and instead a juxtaposition of ideals that he can’t live up to.

“Holy shit,” A voice behind him says, and Connor whips around, raising his scythe protectively. He relaxes when he sees that it’s Price, and the bitter feeling rises in his chest once more. But at least it’s just Price and not another elder who doesn’t know about the existence of angels and devils amongst them.

“Oh, it’s just you,” Connor mutters and turns away, his arm dangling down and scythe dragging on the ground as he continues his sullen walk. He hears footsteps padding behind him, and a hand grabs his free arm. Connor starts and turns against his better judgement. Elder Price is inches from his face, eyes wide with surprise s the flicker from his scythe back up to Connor’s eyes. Connor represses the urge to kiss him or slap him away.

“Elder McKinley, what the fuck is that?” Price breathes, staring openly at the scythe now, and Connor flinches at the expletive. He groans and half-heartedly tries to tug his arm away from Price.

“It’s a scythe, Elder. Haven’t you ever seen one before?” He says sarcastically, giving up and letting his arm flop down. Elder Price shakes his head slowly.

“No, wow,” He says, sounding like a little kid, “How did you get this?”

Connor nearly screams in frustration.

“It’s standard issue, Elder. I got it from the demon ward in charge when I died and went to Hell. Didn’t you go through the same thing or something? I don’t know, got a bow and arrow maybe?” He shouts, and his voice rings a bit too suddenly through the air. He shuts his mouth abruptly, there’s no need for others to hear about this. Connor is aware of his heavy breathing and the tension in his limbs, he focuses back on Elder Price, who is still holding on to his arm. Connor is tired of him, tired of his strong grip and his beautiful eyes. He wrenches his arm free and turns to stalk away when Elder Price speaks.

“Elder McKinley, what are you saying?” He sounds confused, and something in his tone make Connor turn back to him. Elder Price looks... lost. His brows are furrowed in confusion and his head is cocked to one side.

“What I’m trying to say, Elder,” Connor starts hotly, striding back towards Price, “is that you can’t just come into my district and mess up the world of the living just because we’re higher powers!

“Being an angel doesn’t mean you can just run off whenever you fancy and leave the rest of us to try and fix your problems, Elder Price. I know that they probably didn’t tell you that I’m working here too, and just because I’m from Hell changes nothing about how we’re supposed to coexist with humanity. We were humans once, Elder, or did you maybe forget that because of your massive fucking ego?” He all but yells, pacing backwards and forwards now. He doesn’t even stutter over the curse. His scythe had warped back a while ago, and now Connor clenches the floppy blue fabric as if it was a lifeline. He stares angrily at Elder Price, daring him to make a move. But Price just stands there, looking increasingly more confused by the minute.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Elder McKinley,” Elder Price says slowly, as if he’s talking to a wounded animal. Connor glares at him, about to retort, when he realizes that Elder Price doesn’t look like he’s lying. If anything, he looks worried and slightly bemused. Connor blinks, a slow, horrid realization dawning on him. He’s frozen to the spot, staring at Elder Price, who isn’t an angel, who’s just a human, who’s not special or spiritual or anything but is a young, confused man whom Connor was in love with.

In either a stroke of luck or panic, Elder Price drops down to the ground asleep, a soft glowing arrow in his back. Connor looks up and comes face to face with Elder Cunningham.

“Hey,” Cunningham says awkwardly, lowering his glowing bow. His eyes dart from Elder Price on the ground to Connors face, and then his scythe, which had unconsciously been brought back once Connor saw the arrow.  
Connor blinks at him, then replies in a surprisingly calm voice, “Hey.”

* * *

 

  
They sit in awkward silence back in Elder Cunningham and Elder Price’s room, having deposited a snoring Price back onto his bed. Elder Cunningham sits on his own bed stiffly, watching Connor pace the room stressfully while muttering under his breath. Every so often, Connor would stare at Price, and then stare and Cunningham, open his mouth as if to speak, only to snap it shut again and continue pacing. He can’t help it – the situation is so bizarre. For the umpteenth time, Connor opens his mouth, and finally sound comes out.

“So, um, Eld-“

“Uh, you can call me Arnold, if you want,” Cunningham interrupts him suddenly, and Connor nods, not really understanding.

“Right, right. Connor,” He says, by way of introducing himself. It feels right, after all, that the first name thing should be mutual. Arnold nods jerkily. Connor resumes his pacing.

“So I know you’re probably really confused,” Cunningham, no, Arnold starts tentatively. Connor nods jerkily, “but I guess I should apologize for not coming to you straightaway? I mean, in fairness, no one in Heaven really told me exactly who the devil I would be working with was, so I couldn’t really pinpoint it as you until the whole village baptisms,” Arnold says, fiddling uncomfortably with the bed sheets. Connor gives up on pacing and stands stock still now, facing Arnold blankly.

“Why didn’t you tell me then?” Connor asks quietly, although he knows full well why he didn’t. Arnold knows it too, and he sighs and stares at the ground.

“Because it was so obvious that you thought it was Kevin, you know? And I know I’m not the obvious choice for an angel, just look at me,” He laughs a little falsely, and Connor feels guilt wash over him, because he knows exactly how Arnold feels. He tentatively sits next to Arnold and they sit side by side in silence for a while, watching Elder Price’s chest rise and fall across from them.

“I’m sorry,” Arnold suddenly says, voice small, “I’m not a very good angel. I tried my hardest, I guess, but I had barely finished high school when it happened, you know? One moment I was helping my dad fix a bulb, the next minute it short circuits and I wake up in Heaven.”

Connor knows how it feels. He’s wondered before why he of all people was chosen for this. He says nothing.

“I didn’t save anyone,” Arnold says quietly, “Before I came here, to Uganda, I never dared to save a single soul. The first one I ever saved was the butcher that we saw get shot,” Connor vaguely remembers Cunningham slipping in through the door after Price, who had at the time filled up the room with screams and terror. Connor realizes that the spiritual presence he has felt then was probably not Price either, and he turns away in embarrassment. Arnold doesn’t seem to notice.

“I don’t blame you,” Connor finally says. It’s comforting, he finds out, to know that he actually means it. Their job is terrifying. It’s something that humanity doesn’t grasp, and sometimes it’s not fair, but it has to be done. Connor feels closer to Arnold now, comfortable in the knowledge that he had gained. They watch Elder Price snore for a little while, and then they turn to each other and burst into small stifled giggles. Connor is shaking, he feels light and giddy and as if everything is going to be fine. Arnold is grinning as well, cheeks stretched and chubby.

“So,” Arnold laughs jokingly, pointing to Price, “Kevin and you, huh?”

Connor smiles at the comment, but it fades as he looks back onto the sleeping man. Now that he knows that Elder Price is not an angel, he doesn’t know what to think. They don’t have a special bond, they never had one. Elder Price was just a human who did what he wanted because he was selfish, but tried to change for the better. But still, Connor’s heart still races and his cheeks still flush when he thinks of Elder Price smiling at him. He tries to will the rising blush on his face to go away as Arnold makes a childish ooooh and waggles his eyebrows.

“I can’t believe I ever thought he was an angel now,” Connor says instead, trying to change the subject. Arnold raises an eyebrow and smirks, but lets the quick topic change go.

“I can. He really is incredible, huh?” Arnold says fondly, looking at the sleeping Price adoringly. Connor stares as him as well, and a warm feeling creeps up inside of him and he can’t help but smile cheesily at Elder Price, who is not an angel, but who is a Mormon and a human.

“Yes,” Connor says, “He’s something incredible.”

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this all in a day im sorry


End file.
